Little Girls(95)

“I don’t mean the meeting. I just . . . I shouldn’t be here.” He checked his watch again. His cell phone. Was Laurie so angry at him that she wasn’t answering his calls? Or was something else going on back at that house?

Why would I think that? I’ve got no reason to think something bad has happened.

Yet he couldn’t shake that feeling that Laurie was in trouble. And not just Laurie—Susan, too.

“Are you on something?” Markham said.

Ted dropped cash on the bar and got off the stool. “Look, Steve, I can’t stay. Tell Fish I’m sorry, but something came up and I need to get home.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But it’s an emergency.”

“Are you f*cking with me? You busted my balls about setting this up and now you’re just going to bail? Is this some kind of joke?”

“I wish it was.”

“What about the meeting with the producers? We’re supposed to head to their office when we leave here. This is a big goddamn deal, Ted. Please tell me you’re pulling my leg.”

Ted squeezed Markham’s shoulder. Then he turned and hustled through the lunch crowd toward the doors.

“This is your career!” Markham shouted after him. But by that time, Ted was already out on the street and running to his car.





Chapter 31


Laurie awoke to the vibration of her cell phone. Sprawled out on the mattress in the master bedroom, she pawed around the floor for her purse. Beside her, Susan moaned and muttered something unintelligible, though Laurie could tell she was clearly agitated about being disturbed. Her purse was on the floor beside the mattress, beneath a clutter of yesterday’s clothes. She dragged the purse closer and dug out the phone. Ted’s name and cell number blinked on the digital display. Laurie felt a knot tighten up in her stomach. She hit the IGNORE button and the call was silenced. The clock on the phone’s display showed it was 12:41 P.M. There were missed call icons on the screen, and when she clicked on these, she saw they were from Ted, too. Why had she and Susan slept so late? She powered down the phone and tossed it back in her bag.

Rolling over, Laurie rocked the girl gently. “Hey. It’s late. We slept till lunchtime.”

Susan groaned and pulled the sheet up over her head. “Don’t feel good.”

Don’t feel well, Laurie internally corrected her grammar—an unpleasant habit she had adopted from Ted.

Laurie climbed up off the mattress. Her back ached. In just her panties and a T-shirt, she went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, washed the sleep from her eyes. Susan had been up much of the night with cramps. Laurie had tried to talk to the girl about all the changes going on in her body, and how it was actually a wonderful thing despite how awful Susan felt. Susan had not been interested in hearing how wonderful it was. On her way out the bedroom, she shut the door so the kid could sleep.

Downstairs, the house was gray. The sky beyond the windows was overcast. Clouds the color of ash congregated over the trees in the backyard. An unseasonably cool wind funneled into the kitchen when Laurie opened one of the bay windows. At the stove, she put on a pot of coffee and silently wished for a newspaper. She wasn’t terribly hungry but found herself peering into the refrigerator at one point, looking at everything but not seeing a thing. In the end, she decided to take a long, hot shower. The need to get clean was very strong.

Outside, the roll of thunder was long and sonorous, like a passing locomotive.





It was nearly one-thirty when Ted finally broke free from a snarl of traffic and the highway opened up. He sped along I-95, dodging slower vehicles while honking at the ones that simply refused to get out of his way. He had already called Laurie’s cell phone three times, leaving enough time between each call in hopes that she would cool off. Each time his call went to voice mail.

This had been a bad idea. He knew he shouldn’t have left them behind in that house.

Calm down. You’re going to kill yourself driving ninety-five miles an hour and what good will that do anyone, Teddy-biscuit?

He wondered now just how long this sense of dread had been bobbing around in his stomach. It had been roiling inside his guts since leaving Maryland. Yesterday, when he had pulled the Volvo up the driveway of their house in Hartford, he had felt an unsettling black shadow fall against his back—an unseen presence breathing down his neck. For the second time in just over a week, he thought about his old childhood nightmare—of waking up in an empty house, his parents gone, his dog gone. Only now it wasn’t a dream. Laurie was gone. Susan was gone. Ted Genarro was finally and permanently ostracized from the people he loved the most.

You’re thinking crazy. She told you to stay away and now you’re just going to go running back to her? Do you really want to do more damage? Maybe she’s right—maybe she just needs some space for a while.

Up ahead, traffic was already beginning to slow. It was just over a four-hour drive to Annapolis.

I should have written down the house’s phone number and called her on the landline. Damn it, I wasn’t thinking!

He could have called information, but he didn’t know the address off the top of his—

But he did. It was programmed in his GPS. He turned the GPS on and waited until it booted up. He scrolled through the RECENTLY FOUND locations. Myles Brashear’s address was at the top. On his cell phone, he dialed 411, then gave the operator the address of the house on Annapolis Road. A few seconds later, an automated female voice recited the number to him. The automated voice advised him that if he pressed 1, he would be connected at no additional cost. He pressed 1.